Research, news and events at the Department of Politics, University of York

Thursday, 9 April 2015

The Leaders Debate: British Politics is No Longer a Three Horse Race

After the rather staged and formulaic
Sky/Channel 4 leader interviews on 26 March (a.k.a. ‘The Return of Paxo’), by
conceding a lectern to what the Westminster media village has disparagingly
thought of as the minnows of British politics, David Cameron may just have breathed new life into what was in danger of becoming a rather dull three horse
race. Here are some of the reasons why the ITV Leaders Debate on 2 April may
represent a turning point.

We have never seen so many women
represented in leadership positions for their national parties, all arguing
passionately in favour of social justice and against the politics of austerity.
As Paul Mason noted, in fact we have never heard such a sustained argument
against austerity from any political figures on prime television before. Even
this shift in political discourse may persuade those in Labour’s inner circle
who have watched the rise of Syriza and Podemos with baffled amazement that
there are votes in an anti-austerity message – especially north of Hadrian’s
Wall and west of Offa’s Dyke.

The Ipsos-MORI ‘worm’ and the instapolls created more confusion than clarity regarding
the leaders’ performance – producing enough variance in terms of cheers and
boos to allow The Telegraph and The Sun to call it for Cameron and The Guardian and Daily Mirror to hand the laurels to Miliband. Neutral opinion
probably scored Nicola Sturgeon ahead of the rest (as did the YouGov poll),
while Farage succeeded in rallying his core support and scoring highly in the
straight talking/trust department. Despite Labour’s genuine woes in Scotland
this is not a bad position for Miliband to be in going into the election after
several years bumping along the bottom in the political leader popularity
stakes. The more voters see Miliband in open combat with Cameron the more they
seem to like him, which is why Lynton Crosby was shrewd enough to go early with
a debate that would give Miliband few opportunities to land sucker punches and
make headlines close enough to polling day to sway floating voters.

Nigel
Farage deliberately eschewed what he considers to be the politically correct
consensus of the established parties in favour of an all out assault on
immigration, foreign aid and Europe. This was all fairly predictable stuff
until Farage suggested that non-British nationals with HIV (not very subtle
code for Black Africans) should not be treated at public expense by the NHS.
This drew visible gasps from the audience and an immediate storm on social
media. Significantly though, only Leanne Wood for Plaid Cymru called Farage out
directly on his remarks – calling them ‘disgusting’. Miliband condemned the
remarks after the debate, but Cameron kept silent. It is a measure of how far
Farage has managed to push the immigration debate into territory that used to
be considered toxic by all but the far right and of UKIP’s dominant position as
the party most trusted by voters on immigration – a traditional Tory trump
card, the loss of which may cost them dear come May 7th.

There
has been a noticeable shift towards presidential-style politics with #TeamEd
working hard to de-geek and ‘Obama-ize’ their leader. So we had lots of ‘Honest
Ed’s nearly new policies’ direct to camera pitches, which trod a thin line
between sincerity and cheese, but also flashes of wit and passion that went
down rather better. Five years of government, and the scars to prove it, ruled
out a repeat of ‘Cleggmania’, but the Deputy Prime Minister has grown into his
role and still appeals to moderate voters with a social conscience despite his
notorious broken promise on university tuition fees (though ironically perhaps
not enough to save his own seat in Sheffield Hallam).

David
Cameron continues to exude the ‘born to govern’ Old Etonian confidence that his
rivals might snipe about but which still impresses the Gogglebox constituency. Tory
strategists were happy enough that Cameron stuck to the ‘who would you rather
have in 10 Downing Street?’ script and avoided the elephant trap of where the
£12 billion in welfare spending cuts was going to come from. Nigel Farage has
made a virtue out of bizarre facial expressions and windmill impressions. Rather
like Boris Johnson, Farage always gets his self-parody in first, and this sets
him attractively apart in a ‘man in the saloon bar’ way from the Westminster
clique. Therefore despite, or even thanks to, the liberal furore over Farage’s ‘health
tourism’ remarks, UKIP achieved their goal in the debate.

By
contrast all the women leaders came across as professional but approachable and
much more interested in the substance of their party’s position than the style
of its delivery (highly polished though Sturgeon in particular was). If nothing
else the presence of Sturgeon, Wood and Bennett proved that there’s more than
one way to appeal to voters than being a middle aged white man in a suit.

Does
any of what viewers saw on April 2nd matter in terms of the outcome
of the election? Probably not, but the exposure that the Greens and the Nationalists
have gained will have boosted their membership and given their campaign teams
something to shout about. Voters wanting a ‘Brexit’ were given little reason to
vote Conservative or LibDem despite promises of a referendum since Cameron
still seemed to be betting his shirt on a British opt out to EU free movement. On
this topic, Miliband scored a rare blow by pointing out that David Cameron’s
failure to stop Jean-Claude Juncker from becoming European Commissioner didn’t auger
well for renegotiating the European Treaties in order to assuage the Tory right,
UKIP supporters and the Europhobic press.

However,
when it comes to the battle on the doorstep in the key marginals, the Tories
will be relying heavily on the partisan support of much of the national press
and an electoral war chest that dwarfs that of all the other parties combined. Conservative
Central Office will now be concentrating all of its resources on promoting #TeamCameron
in favour of the much weaker brand of the party at large. Despite a reasonable
start to the campaign in England and Wales #TeamEd and Labour face a huge and
unexpected problem in coping with the #SturgeonSurge since the SNP leader is unquestionably
the most capable politician in Scotland. Jim Murphy has an uphill battle to
persuade voters that the Labour Party will stand up for Scotland’s interests
better than Nicola’s tartan army – particularly given the success of Alex
Salmond in keeping the Barnett Formula and wresting more powers from Westminster
thanks to the unionist parties’ Devo Max concession prior to the Scottish
Referendum.

The
Leaders Debate may have fired the starting gun but with such a tight election
race in prospect we can expect many more thrills and spills before the runners
cross the line on May 7th.